


Unspoken Needs

by MrsHamill



Series: Grandmother Raven: The Path of a Shaman [4]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-10
Updated: 2001-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 06:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHamill/pseuds/MrsHamill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which we learn a bit more about Grandmother, Jim learns a bit more about himself, and Blair is tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken Needs

**Author's Note:**

> Starts shortly after Prisoner X ended, and ends shortly before The Trance. This is the product of a Fox-beta and a Christi-prod, but any mistakes left are mine, and yes, C, I'll get to the boinking. Eventually.

          "The miracle of friendship can be spoken without words... hearing unspoken needs, recognizing secret dreams, understanding the silent things that only a true friend knows."  
  
          -- Source Unknown

* * *

Violet Williams, nee Stashen, was born in either 1928 or 1934 -- depending upon which source you believed, her Social Security records or her driver's license -- in the tiny town of Waldron, on an island in the middle of Puget Sound. Her father, a pureblood Salishan, was a fisherman; her mother, a housewife. She married Pierre (Pete) Williams in 1947, shortly after he returned home from serving in World War II, and moved to Snohomish with him. They had no children. He died in 1971 in a car accident, and his widow moved to Cascade to live with her older sister's grown daughter and her family. She became active in the Cascade Native American Resource Center and was working there three to six days a week by 1972. Her job description apparently included librarian, historian, teacher, guide and elder for the Salish tribe.

Jim Ellison sat in his truck in front of a cozy-looking brick rambler and fretted. All the information he had been able to call up about Grandmother Raven raced through his head -- not that it had been easy to call up info; she didn't have a rap sheet, since she'd never had so much as a parking ticket. Yet again, he wondered just what he thought he was doing here, at her house, unannounced, on a cold, clear Tuesday afternoon. Just as he was about to start his truck and leave, he heard his Chopec name called in a soft voice.

"Enqueri," he heard Grandmother Raven say, from somewhere in or beyond the house, "I don't know why you sit out there when your animal spirit is already pacing back and forth behind my house -- frightening the birds, I might add. I'm in the garden out back. Get your ass out here; I could use some big muscles to help me spread mulch."

Jim closed his eyes and snorted in laughter. Whatever had made him think that he could get away with just leaving? Still smiling, he climbed out of the truck and made his way out back, to the medium-sized garden Grandmother Raven was tending.

The garden looked like it was mostly flowers -- it didn't have that regimented row upon row of plants that a vegetable garden had. Most of it was dark mud, a few sad sticks of leftover flowers, and heaps of pulled weeds -- which would grow at any time, apparently. There was no sign of his spirit animal, for which Jim was ruefully grateful. Grandmother Raven was on her knees at one end of the garden, and as Jim entered the backyard, she motioned towards the other end. "Grab the wheelbarrow and pitchfork; you can start over there," she said. "I'm glad you're wearing jeans today. You must have had a premonition that you'd be helping me."

Jim didn't answer, but he kept smiling as he pushed the wheelbarrow full of fragrant mulch to one side of the garden. This end had been weeded, he could tell; there were piles of what he assumed were weeds lying on the grass, and the soil was lumped up where they had been pulled. Using the pitchfork, he began spreading mulch throughout, trying not to bury any plants that were left.

"Careful there," he heard a few minutes later, "that's my coreopsis. It's not that delicate, but it's one of my favorites." Gently Jim nudged the mulch around the little bit of fragile-looking plant, already mostly died back.

"Why are you putting mulch out now?" Jim asked curiously. "Now that winter's here, I mean," he qualified.

"This is the time when they need it the most," Grandmother Raven answered, grunting slightly as she pulled an especially recalcitrant weed. "I'm glad we had this break in the weather now. You see, they're asleep for the winter, but need a blanket to protect their roots from the cold that comes in January and February. And it will prevent any other weeds from taking root."

Ah. Well, that made sense. Shortly, the wheelbarrow was empty, and Jim was pushing it back to the mound of leaf and bark mulch that lay on the ground at the end of the driveway. It had obviously been dumped there by a truck, and he wondered what the woman would have done had he not shown up to help. Refilling the barrow, he pushed it back to the garden and began laying more mulch down.

Close to an hour passed this way, with mindless, comforting work Jim found he actually enjoyed. Curiously, rather than bothering his senses, the earthy smell of the mulch and the dying garden soothed him, and seemed to mask the other, more noxious smells normal for a Cascade winter. Finally, with the garden fully weeded and about half mulched, Grandmother Raven got creakily to her feet and brushed off her gloves and knees. "That will do for now, Enqueri, thank you. Let's go get something to drink."

Inside the house it was warm and pleasant, and Jim took the damp washcloth she handed him with relief, using it to wipe off his face, neck and hands. Sitting heavily at the kitchen table, he was surprised to find his hostess handing him a cold bottle of Labatt's Blue. She had another in her hand. Smiling at each other wordlessly, they clinked bottles and each took a deep draught.

"Ah," she said appreciatively, putting her bottle down on the table. "Warming to the insides. That is _just_ what the doctor ordered."

Jim grunted in agreement, then blinked as a sleek, golden animal flowed into the room and up to his feet. A ferret?

"That's Morrie," Grandmother Raven said placidly. "She'll want to climb you, sniff you and taste you, but she won't break your skin if you hold still. Ferrets are exceedingly curious beasts, which often gets them into trouble."

Morrie looked at Grandmother Raven reproachfully, almost as if she understood what the old woman was saying. Then, without further ado, she swarmed up Jim's pant leg and on to his lap, using his arm to further climb to his shoulder and peer into his face. "Um, hello, Morrie," Jim said, trying to pull back so he wasn't cross-eyed as he looked into the pointed, eager face.

Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw in Jim's face, Morrie slid down his chest to his lap. She nibbled on three fingers -- carefully -- then promptly curled up and fell asleep. Grandmother Raven laughed.

"It looks like I passed the test," Jim said wryly, taking another sip of his beer.

"Morrie is not too terribly discerning, but she knows who she likes. She doesn't trust that many people enough to fall asleep on them. Consider yourself blessed."

"I will," Jim answered, "thanks, um... ma'am."

Grandmother Raven cocked her head at him, an impish -- almost Sandburgian -- grin on her face. "Jim. Would it help you to call me Mrs. Williams? Or even Vi? Either will do, you know. You don't have to use my nickname."

Jim could feel his ears turning pink. "It... well, it might, I guess. It just seems so..."

"Cliche?" she finished for him. "Ask ten people on the street, what would you name a female native American elder, and probably half of them would use Grandmother Raven or something similar," she laughed. "But actually, I come by it rightfully. Raven was my nickname in childhood, you see." She touched the hair coiled on her head and grimaced. "Not raven any more, but it used to be. My great-grandmother, on my mother's side, was Haida. You've probably never heard of them." Jim shook his head, smiling. "Haida is a tribe from up north of Vancouver -- nearly up to Alaska. There are two major houses, Raven and Eagle. Great-grandmother was Raven, a daughter of the clan-head, and was wooed and won by a dashing young Salishan warrior more than a hundred years ago. He brought her back here, to his home on the Puget Sound."

Grandmother Raven's voice turned from practiced -- she'd obviously told this story before -- to thoughtful. "Haida are a matriarchal society, despite the fact that the chief is always male. They are also matrilineal, and power is passed through the female. My great-grandmother was a powerful shaman, and passed that power on to her daughters. It has not been my lot in life to bear children, so I am passing mine on to Violet, my great-grand-niece."

She sounded so matter-of-fact over her inability to have children that Jim might have believed it didn't affect her. However, the undertone of sadness, and the stutter of her heart when she said the word, led him to believe she was still unhappy about her childlessness. "It's a comfort to me to have little ones call me Grandmother," she said, as if hearing his thoughts. "And of course, Grandmother Raven just grew. But I answer to Vi as well." She winked at him. "It would do my ego proud to have a gorgeous young swain calling me by my first name."

"Then you're gonna have to look to Sandburg for that," Jim laughed, his ears turning pink -- again. "If you want a gorgeous young swain, anyway. But if you want to settle for an old balding cop, I'm your man."

"Nonsense," she snorted. "Enqueri, just about everyone is young to me. You may not feel as young as you used to, but believe me, what you feel now? It's just the beginning."

Jim looked down. "Yeah, well, I hope it don't get too much worse. Because I do feel old. Sometimes older than other times."

Grandmother Raven cocked her head at him, examining him with that penetrating stare that always made him nervous. "You've got some new scars on you, and I haven't seen either of you boys around for a while. What's been happening with you two?"

"Well, actually," Jim began slowly, "that's why I came. I'm kind of worried about Sandburg. He's been pushing himself pretty hard, spreading himself way too thin, and I'm, well..."

"Worried," she finished for him. He nodded. "The last time I saw Blair was, gracious. Nearly a month ago? You and he had just come back from some island, for a fishing trip?"

Jim frowned. "That was the last time you saw him? If he hasn't had enough time to see you..."

"Jim," Grandmother Raven said with some asperity, "tell me what you think is happening with Blair."

"Well, for one, he told me he's not sure he wants to be a shaman now," Jim blurted out. When her expression of placid acceptance didn't change, he felt the courage to go on. "It was just a couple days ago... we'd had this huge fight. I -- I had to go undercover, at a prison, and of course, Sandburg said he was going to go with me. I told him I'd kick his ass from here to Seattle if he tried... prison is no place for a... I mean, no place for him." He took a big swallow of beer to fight the dryness in his mouth. "But of course, the little jerk managed to get in anyway, as a teacher. God! I nearly dropped a brick when I saw him standing there at the head of the classroom."

"I think we've talked about Blair's tendency to rush in where angels fear to tread before," Grandmother Raven said mildly. "Forbidding him something is tantamount to dangling it before his face."

Jim sighed, exasperation making his head throb. "Yeah, I know. Or I should have known. You know, I tried to be rational about it. Gave him all the reasons why it was a bad idea. And he agreed with every damn one of them, and _still_ insisted on coming with me."

"He must have felt pretty strongly that you needed him."

The mild tone at first hid the import of her words, but when they sank in, Jim blinked. Well, of course. Although Jim would like to believe it was sheer cussedness that caused Blair to follow him around like a demented limpet, in actual fact, Blair did it because he wanted to help Jim. And he did help Jim. More, actually, than Jim liked to admit. "But I don't want him to," he whispered, stunned.

"Jim," Grandmother Raven said, "You're going to have to examine your own feelings here. Everything you've said about Blair can be taken many ways... just now, for example. You don't want him to... what? Follow you? Feel you need him? Or are you afraid of your own neediness? It's not a sin, you know, to need someone."

Grimacing, Jim focused on the older woman. She was still calm, accepting, open to anything he might say. Like Sandburg, here was someone who would never condemn or censure him, who would be willing to listen and who would believe him -- believe _in_ him. He was only just now coming to realize how important such people were in his life. "I know," he finally said. "I've just... gotten used to not needing. It's easier."

"Easier maybe," she replied, standing and stretching, "but less fulfilling. These old bones don't like sitting on these hard chairs. Let's move this party into the other room." She raised an eyebrow at him, adding, "I'll show you my etchings..."

Jim had to laugh, which of course made her laugh too. When she held up her empty beer bottle, silently asking him if he wanted another, he shook his head. "One's enough for me. I'm having enough problems keeping up with you as it is." He shifted, which woke up Morrie. The ferret jumped down on her own accord and disappeared.

"Piffle," she said, leading him down the hall. "You manage to hold your own with the certified hurricane Blair Sandburg; you can hold your own against one old woman."

Well, Jim wasn't too sure of that, but he didn't disabuse her of the notion. The other room turned out to be a back bedroom, furnished with a desk, chairs, a loveseat, bookshelves and thick carpeting. It was quiet and sun-filled, and it smelled wonderful. Jim took a deep breath and smiled.

Grandmother Raven was just settling herself in a comfortable-looking recliner when she must have caught his expression. Cocking her head, she said, "You have a beautiful smile, Enqueri. I'd like to see it more often."

The smile turned rueful. "You and everyone else I know," he said, beginning a slow tour of the room. "I have a reputation for being a bear. I know it, but there doesn't seem to be a lot I can do about it." Gently, he reached out a finger and traced the spiral carvings on a wooden mask hanging on the wall. "Sandburg's helped, though. Now that I know what I am, what I can do, it's a bit easier."

"I imagine," she said, watching him intently. Jim realized that from the positioning of the recliner, she could see nearly the whole room, and wondered if it was intentional. "That's Tlingit," she continued, indicating the mask he was staring at. "A _yek_ mask. It's about five hundred years old."

"It's exquisite," Jim murmured, nearly zoning on the intricate and delicate grooves. "I imagine Sandburg's spent a lot of time here, with all these artifacts."

"Blair has a passion for such things," she agreed. "He's a passionate man."

"Well, he is that," Jim agreed, rolling his eyes. He moved on to a bookshelf, cocking his head to read the faded titles. A small, gleaming carving caught his eye, and gently he picked it up. It was a smoky black cat... but it wasn't. "What is this?" Jim asked, turning the small piece in his fingers.

"It's made from hematite, and very old. It's supposed to represent the Changeling, the Transformer." She looked at him sharply. "The Haida called it the Black Cougar, for they had no word for jaguar."

Jim blinked and froze. "It's a black jaguar?"

"Yes. There are legends of a great black cat who walked between the worlds, who could transform into a man and help people," she went on. "Blair called it some kind of standard proto-myth or something. If you look at it closely, you'll see it's a cat caught in the process of being transformed to a man -- or perhaps vice versa."

It was true. One outstretched -- leg? arm? -- ended in something that was not quite a paw and not quite a hand, and the more Jim studied the head, the less feline it appeared to him. He shook his head sharply -- no need to zone here and scare Vi -- but the piece was intensely compelling.

"It reminds you of something... yes?" she asked. "Something like your spirit animal. Have you ever seen it turn into a man?"

With exceeding care -- the trembling in his fingers made it difficult -- Jim replaced the figurine and crossed the room to sit on the loveseat. "Yes," he finally said, scrubbing his face with his hands. "In dreams, and when I was in Peru." He leaned his head on his hands, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" She asked him gently.

"You mean the whole thing, or just the part with my spirit animal?" Jim asked, his weary voice muffled behind his hands.

Grandmother Raven snorted. "Let's start with the Reader's Digest version of the whole thing, and I'll let you know from there." Jim looked up to catch her looking at him, and this time, it wasn't that scary stare. Her face was suffused with compassion and humor, friendship and wisdom. No pity -- no pity or condemnation or revulsion anywhere.

Abruptly, Jim made up his mind. "In early 1988, I was an Army Ranger, a Captain. I was sent on an anti-insurgence mission to Peru, and ended up the only survivor of my team," he began.

* * *

  
It was full dark before Jim stopped talking, not that it was that late. Dark came early this close to the turning of the year. He stood -- at parade rest -- at a window in the room and stared, unseeing, at the backyard. Grandmother Raven was still and quiet, processing, he supposed, thinking about all he had told her. It was funny; except for Sandburg, he had not told anyone the whole story. And Blair had only had it in bits and pieces, in midnight confessions after nightmares and as memories returned.  
  
The front door slammed, and Jim heard quick footsteps echo. He caught Violet's soft voice as she greeted Morrie, then heard her click lights on and approach the door to the room. "Grandmother?"  
  
"Hello, _k'weit'en_ ," Vi said as the girl poked her head in the room. "How was school?"  
  
"It was okay," Violet said soberly. "Hi, Jim, how are you?"  
  
Jim half turned and gave her a smile. "Hi, Violet. I'm fine, thanks. It's late, Vi, I should..."  
  
"No, not yet," Vi said, holding up her hand. "Violet, would you be a dear and start dinner for me?"  
  
"Of course, Grandmother," she said, closing the door as she left.  
  
"Jim, I need to ask you some questions," Grandmother Raven said, indicating he should take a seat. "Do you have time to stay a little more?"  
  
Shrugging, Jim said, "Yeah, sure. Sandburg's not going to be home until about midnight or later, if the pattern holds. He's been at campus nearly all night for the past week -- if he sleeps it's at his desk -- but still shows up to work cases with me." He snorted. "I came here to talk about him... how did we end up talking about me for so long?"  
  
"Because you needed to," she replied seriously. Jim sat back down on the loveseat, for some reason feeling several pounds lighter.  
  
"But what am I gonna do about Sandburg?" Jim asked. "I mean, I can _tell_ how upset he's been, and it's not just because of school, or working at the station, or even having to deal with school and PD bureaucracy."  
  
"You and Blair are tied together, Jim," Vi said. "A blind person could see it. Right now, you and he are bound by ties that run so deep, I don't think anything short of surgery could separate you. Whatever you do affects him, and vice versa. This recent experience, you said you went undercover?"  
  
Jim stared at her. Bound? "Uh, yeah," he finally said, "it was at Starkville. A friend of mine, from high school, he died while was in there, and I went in undercover as a prisoner to find out what was happening."  
  
Horror flitted across Grandmother Raven's face. "As a prisoner? Jim, you could have gotten killed."  
  
Jim made a face and nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know, but I had to find out what was happening, what had happened to Matty," he said. "It wasn't fun, but what I did, it made a difference."  
  
"It must have been dreadful, especially with your senses."  
  
Looking down, Jim murmured, "Yeah. I -- yeah." Feeling the wealth of pain that had overcome him while he had been inside, he looked into her eyes, seeking and finding the compassion there. "It was awful. What I could hear... and not being able to do anything about it. Tore me up, you know?"  
  
She shook her head. "I can't even imagine. How do you heal from something like that, Jim? And don't give me any BS about not needing to heal."  
  
Jim surprised himself by speaking the truth. "I have no idea. For me, I wanted to be on my own, for a while, anyway. I drove the truck up to the pass and just sat there, breathing in the fresh air. Tried to forget."  
  
"What about Blair?" she asked quietly. "Did he help? Did you ask him for help?"  
  
"Ask him? No," Jim replied, sounding almost sad to his own ears. "He probably would have tried, but he's been so busy. That time helping me in Starkville put him way behind, and he's had to play catch up. I -- I feel bad about taking him away from the thing he really loves."  
  
Grandmother Raven shook her head and frowned. "I think you're presuming to much about Blair, Jim," she said. "But I needed to ask you some questions. How long has it been since you've seen your spirit animal?"  
  
Frowning, Jim shook his head. "Ah... gee. Not since... not for a long time. It was here today, though, wasn't it? Why?"  
  
"You didn't see it at the prison?"  
  
"No." Jim thought back. He had seen the creature last when he loaded Incacha's remains on a plane for Peru. "And that doesn't really bother me, you know," he added. "Seeing something that others can't see... well, it makes me feel kind of weird."  
  
"Jim," she said with some asperity, "you see and hear things others can't all the time. It's not weird, it's your gift."  
  
"Yeah, but --"  
  
"No buts," she interrupted. "Your spirit guide is here for a reason and I won't have you turning your back on it. The minute you appeared in the backyard, it disappeared. That's very telling to me. Do you know the attributes of a black jaguar spirit guide?" she said, changing her thought in mid-stream. Without waiting for his answer, she continued. "It's said that they can see the roads and understand the patterns of chaos. A black jaguar moves without fear through the darkness, and is the gatekeeper to the unknowable. Why do you _think_ you're a policeman?"  
  
Once again Jim felt poised on the rim of a precipice. "Blair... Sandburg says it's because I have a genetic imperative to protect the tribe. It's what Sentinels do."  
  
"To empower," she agreed, "yourself and others. To heal the soul. To move in unknown places and guard against the darkness. If you weren't a cop, you'd be something else equally helpful. Yes?"  
  
"Well... yeah." Jim thought about this; it was nothing new, nothing he didn't already know, but it was something he didn't spend a lot of time on. Being a cop simply fulfilled something deep inside him. "I guess it is instinctual. And this is what a black jaguar means?"  
  
"Yes," she replied, "all this and more. It is why I want Blair to seek and find his own spirit animal, which I feel is close to him. It's why I don't want you making assumptions about him or you or any of this."  
  
"But I'm not, I don't -- I don't want him doing anything he doesn't want to do," Jim protested. "He doesn't have to be a shaman, and if he decides not to, it's not going to be any big deal. A shaman isn't exactly required in Cascade, and he guides me already, shaman or no shaman."  
  
"True," Grandmother Raven said placidly, " a shaman is something of an unneeded thing here. For the most part. And true, Blair already guides you. But think, Enqueri," she continued, and Jim realized she used his Chopec name when she was making an important point. "The two of you don't need to seek trouble, it finds you. Almost as if you were a magnet and it metal. Perhaps this is what Incacha foresaw, why he passed the Way on to Blair."  
  
"But how would Blair becoming a shaman help in that?" Jim asked.  
  
"I don't know," she replied. "I can only speculate. But I do know that Blair is poised between two paths. He's waffling, hesitating, hoping that if he does nothing, his path will become clearer to him. But doing nothing is, in and of itself, a choice too. And a bad one here." She leaned back, frowning. "I told you before that the two of you are bound together. Irrespective of whether Blair becomes a shaman, he will be attuned to you -- at all times. You _must_ remember that. It is too easy for the two of you to hurt each other through inattention or by closing yourselves off."  
  
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off a growing headache. "Grandmother, I'm completely at a loss here. I want to help Sandburg, and from what you've said, he needs help, but it seems like whenever I try, I screw up. I'd really appreciate some advice."  
  
She smiled brilliantly at him, her eyes dancing over some hidden joke. "Why don't you try asking _him_ for help, Enqueri?" she said.  
  
It wasn't until Jim was halfway home that he realized he had called her Grandmother.  
  


* * *

  
To Jim's surprise, Blair was at the loft when he returned. He lay sprawled on the sofa, fully dressed down to his shoes and coat, snoring gently. His head was cocked in an unnatural position, and Jim new if he didn't get Blair up, he'd have a crick the size of New Hampshire.  
  
But Jim simply stood over his friend for a moment, drinking in the presence he hadn't seen for a while. Blair looked utterly exhausted; there were dark circles under his eyes and his face looked pinched, like he hadn't been eating. Carefully, Jim reached down and untied the laces of Blair's shoes, removing them and putting them in Blair's room. Then he went back and gently prodded and pushed until Blair's coat was off -- Blair didn't even notice aside from a few soft grunts and incoherent protestations.  
  
When Jim had Blair more comfortable on the sofa -- with a pillow under his head and the afghan over him -- he crouched by the sofa and really studied his friend. Was Grandmother Raven right, and was how Jim felt affecting Blair? If so, then Jim needed to make a concentrated effort to lighten up, to talk more, to trust Blair. Piece of cake.  
  
Yeah, right.  
  
After a few minutes, Jim rose and moved to the kitchen to prepare something for dinner; something caloric but light -- comfort food. Soup and a sandwich sounded good. Before long, the heady aroma of tomato soup had Blair shifting, pulling him out of sleep.  
  
Jim put a tray laden with food and drink on the coffee table as Blair opened bleary eyes. "Oh, man, tell me I can have some of that," he croaked.  
  
"Oh, I suppose so," Jim said, his words belied by his smile. "Just don't get crumbs on the floor."  
  
Blair pushed himself up with a groan and scrubbed his hair back with his hands. "I hate finals time," he muttered, grabbing a sandwich. When he took a bite, his face lit up. "Peanut butter and sprouts. Man, I love you."  
  
Jim just grinned. "Only for you, Junior. Eat your soup. You look like shit."  
  
"Yeah, well, I feel like shit," Blair retorted. "But I'm done. Nothing now until the end of January."  
  
"Good," Jim said around a mouthful of bologna and cheese. "So you can go visit Mrs. Williams tomorrow. Like you should have been doing." Blair froze in the act of chewing, staring at Jim with big eyes. "Yeah," Jim said, "I saw her today. Spent the afternoon with her, in fact. She's a great old lady."  
  
Blair carefully put his sandwich back on the plate and took a deep swig of bottled water. "Jim, man, don't surprise me like that," he said weakly. "My heart can't take it."  
  
"No more excuses, Sandburg," Jim said seriously, ignoring the joke. "She needs to see you, and you need to see her. Hell, I need you to see her. This has gotta be resolved, Chief."  
  
Biting his lip, Blair looked down at his mug of soup. "She tell you what's been happening?"  
  
"A little," Jim replied. "Look, Sandburg, let me help. I mean, God knows you help me enough. What I know about shamanism can maybe fill a thimble, but let me do something."  
  
Blair swallowed, then sipped at his soup. Without looking at Jim, he said, "You mean that, man?"  
  
"Of course I do, Chief," Jim said. "Look, you're wiped. Finish your dinner, get a shower, go to bed. I'm on call tonight, but you don't have to go anywhere with me if I get a call. Sleep. Mrs. Williams will still be there tomorrow."  
  
Blair took a deep breath and his face relaxed. "Okay. Thanks, Jim. For all of this."  
  
Swallowing other words, Jim just shrugged and said, "That's what friends are for, Chief."

end


End file.
